In our last article, we learned about Amway’s belief in the power of plants to promote wellbeing and deliver the best products to support consumers on their wellness journey. The company is working to create products and packaging that enables customers to make choices that reduce their environmental impact while making Amway itself more sustainable.
Now, we explore the next phase:
Sustainable operations actions and commitments
Our global operations sustainability journey is evolving – and that’s a good thing! New targets will be defined as our assessments point more precisely to the most impactful actions we can take. Our priorities will reflect the planet’s most urgent needs, as well as new knowledge coming to light based on global research and other companies’ shared experience.
With our global operations we are…
- Reducing carbon emissions and waste overall.
- Minimising resource intensity, improving energy efficiency and continuing to shift to renewable energy. Examples include:
- LEED certified facilities at several locations around the world.
- Incorporating wind power at our Ada, Michigan (USA) manufacturing sites (since 2010). In fact, 100% of the electricity used to manufacture several of our products in Ada comes from renewable wind energy.
- Solar panels provide more than 10% of the power at our Buena Park, California (USA) facility.
- Using timers and motion sensors to power down lighting and equipment in the Ada warehouse when not in use to reduce power consumption.
- Ensuring shipping trucks to the USA distribution centres carry “backhauls” of scrap, empty pallets, recyclable materials or other freight on their return trips whenever possible, greatly reducing empty truck runs.
- Replaced heavy wooden pallets with lightweight, space-saving, recyclable corrugated cardboard slip sheets for shipping. Corrugated enables us to fit more products in cargo shipments with less weight, reducing the number of shipping runs and thus our carbon footprint over time.
- Wind and solar power combine to provide 63% of power consumed at our India manufacturing plant. The facility has one of the largest rooftop solar plants in the area with a zero-water discharge site.
- The India facility recycles and reuses 100% of hazardous and plastic waste from manufacturing processes.
- The facility collected and recycled 800 metric tons of post-consumer plastic waste.
- The facility reduced carbon emissions by reducing paper use equivalent to saving 47,000 trees in one year.
- Renewable energy and emissions reduction initiatives are in the works at our China manufacturing facilities.
- Reducing water use in manufacturing facilities through efficiency improvements.
- Diverting waste from landfill streams and evaluating further diversion strategies that achieve waste targets. For example:
- Donating products that do not meet quality standards for sale but are still safe for human consumption to non-profits rather than landfilling it. We also divert scrapped products such as protein powder to companies that turn it into animal feed.
- Donating leftover event t-shirts and giveaway items to human services agencies that can distribute them.
- Making efficiency updates to our Ada and Buena Park office buildings to help reduce energy usage.
- Selecting planet-conscious building construction materials wherever feasible and choosing material suppliers closer to us to help reduce the transportation footprint.
Remember that Amway has always aimed to live responsibly, and we believe in providing choices that help others do the same. To us, sustainability is a journey full of possibilities and opportunities to make a difference for the planet – through our own actions and by empowering our ABOs and their customers to reduce their impact.
Protecting plants and natural resources, designing more responsible products and packaging and globally reducing the impact of our operations: these are our priorities for making the planet better today. People at Amway have long made environmentally conscious improvements across the company. Our new targets through 2030 will further protect soil and water, reduce emissions, conserve resources and more. Be sure to track our progress and new initiatives as our journey continues!
At Amway, we see sustainability as a journey full of possibilities and opportunities to make a difference for the planet. We invite you on this journey to join us as we make the world a better place!
